This invention relates to solar energy collecting systems and particularly to such systems wherein sunlight is gathered by a reflective collector and focused onto a container or conduit of heat exchange fluid.
Prior art solar energy collecting systems often employ reflective or mirrored collectors which gather sunlight and focus the sunlight on a conduit which accommodates a heat exchange fluid, the flow of which carries heat to the location where it is to be utilized. To optimize the amount of sunlight gathered, the collector is usually quite long and broad and the heat transfer fluid flow through the collector is usually confined to a narrow conduit.
The reflective collector is often of a single parabolic cross sectional curvature which in theory gathers parallel rays of sunlight and focuses the sunlight on to a line, a narrow elongated heat transfer fluid conduit being located coincident to this theoretical focal line. While much of this sunlight may indeed be focused onto this line thereby raising the temperature of the heat transfer fluid, it will be understood that unless the collector is of precise parabolic shape, substantial quantities of the reflected sunlight may be found on points spaced from the heat transfer fluid conduit thereby limiting the overall efficiency of the collector system. While forming the collector in such a precise parabolic shape would maximize the amount of radiation focused on the focal line, such precision construction may be economically prohibitive for many applications.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a solar energy collecting system which overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a solar energy collecting system of enhanced efficiency.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a solar energy collecting system which is economical to manufacture.